The world has come to a standstill over the COVID19 virus how should the Christian respond. 

<p>The world has come to a standstill over the COVID19 virus how should the Christian respond. </p>

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Newington Three Angels Church

Pandemic at the Door

Eric Walsh

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 1

I'm at the 3 Angels Church in Newington, Connecticut.

And we are filming in an empty church because of the fear of the COVID-19, once known as the Wuhan virus and then the coronavirus, that is affecting America and the world today.

I've been asked by a few churches to kind of give a bit of an update and some thoughts on this, a Christian perspective, Adventist perspective on what is happening in the world.

And so I'm going to say a word of prayer and then just for a few minutes we're going to talk a bit about the virus and what it means to us from a physical health perspective, public health perspective, a spiritual perspective, and where it lands us in the stream of prophecy.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word and to place into perspective what has now become a global phenomena, a pandemic.

This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name.

So I want to start in the book of Matthew, the 24th chapter, Matthew chapter 24.

Most of you know, normally when I preach, there are a lot of slides and I give infographics.

On this subject, things are changing so fast that I don't want to put up an infographic.

I'll stick with the 1 thing that does not change and that is God's Word.

Matthew 24, if you begin to read at verse 4, and I'm reading from the New King James version of the Bible, It says, take heed that no man deceive you, for many will come in my name and will deceive many.

You'll hear of wars and rumors of war, see that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, But the end is not yet.

For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

The Bible tells us as Jesus is exiting the temple, he's talking to his disciples who have just seen him run ripshod through the temple, seeing him bring low the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

And they're wondering how is it that Christ could do this and not recognize the temple?

So they say, hey, do you see the wonder and the splendor of the temple?

And Jesus says, listen, eventually, I assure you that not 1 stone of this temple will stand 1 upon the other.

The disciples begin to realize that Christ is being prophetic, and they ask him, what does this mean?

And when, they say, and what are the signs of your coming and of the end of the age or the end of the world.

This is when Jesus gives us this passage of scripture.

He begins by saying, make sure that no 1 deceives you.

The Greek word for deceives there is planeo.

It means like to lead away a sheep, as in the parable of the 99 sheep.

And Jesus says, for many will come in my name, saying I am Christ, and will deceive many.

I normally would go more into all of this, but I want to jump into 1 thing where it says, and there will be wars and rumors of wars, then Christ says to his disciples, see that ye be not troubled.

In other words, when war begins to happen, when the world begins to turn on itself, that is not the time to be troubled or in fear.

Scripture clearly says, Jesus says, listen, don't be troubled, for this must come to pass, but it is not the end yet.

Then to describe this time period just before the end starts, he gives some more details.

He says, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

He says, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

All these things are the beginnings of sorrows.

I could talk about famines, the fact that 1 out of 7 people in the world are in hunger, and hunger and malnutrition are still the leading causes of death in many parts of the world.

Not just hunger and lack of food, but in America in the West, we have malnutrition and famine in an abundance of calories.

We know, and normally I could put up slides to show you that we have seen diseases come out of nowhere, like Ebola.

We've seen diseases like HIV, Zika, all of a sudden pop up.

And if you look at the iteration of the times when they come, Some argue these things seem to happen often in an election year.

But I want to say that pestilence is 1 of the things that Jesus says would happen.

And the connotation, the way that I read this is that there will be diseases in the last days that will come out of nowhere, that will shock the world.

What we're looking at right now is pestilence.

I'll finish the verse and then we'll get to the coronavirus component of this and the rest of that verse is an earthquakes in various places and we've seen this.

We've seen earthquakes in Puerto Rico somewhere where you wouldn't think you'd get an earthquake.

We also recently had 1 between the islands of Jamaica and Cuba.

If you look at the National Geological Society's maps, there are earthquakes happening all the time.

The earthquakes often are happening in diverse places.

The pestilences are relevant to us now as the world is gripped.

There are a few things that this pestilence actually helps to teach us.

1 of them is that what we think is life is very fragile.

Not just in that a virus can come out of nowhere and begin to kill hundreds, yea thousands of people, but life is fragile in that all of the normal social construct here in America has been shut down and in much of the world.

The NBA has canceled or suspended its season.

The NCAA has canceled the March Madness playoffs that would have happened this month.

We've watched pretty much every other major sporting system shut down.

We have watched conferences, medical conferences, government conferences, business conferences, all close and shutter and cancel.

We have watched cruise ships become empty and we've watched as even now churches are not being able to meet.

We are watching what we thought was stability and God is showing us through what's happening that what we thought was stability is actually instability.

As much as we wanna think we know what's gonna happen tomorrow, we now know as the schools all begin to shut down, the state of Ohio has just shut down all of its schools.

We now know that what seems like it is going to be for sure tomorrow, in these end times, they may not be there the next day.

In fact, the spirit of prophecy tells us that the last events will be rapid ones.

I want you to look at what happened at a disease that is 80% of the people who get this disease, it's a mild disease.

The case fatality rate ranges anywhere from .4% up to 2.8%, depending on where you are in China, higher for those that are older.

A disease that overall most people that get it are not going to get very sick.

And yet, with all of that, the world has come to a halt.

The disease whose case fatality rate is 33%, as described in the 7 last plagues, when that hits the world, what will happen when that happens?

We are living in a time of great uncertainty, and there is great fear.

In fact, further down in Matthew chapter 24, 1 of the things that is said by Jesus in this same passage is that in the last days, men's hearts will fail them for fear.

You can't find toilet paper in most of the grocery stores now.

And toilet paper has nothing to do with the virus.

We went down into the city, and we were able to find it in abundance because there's another even greater pandemic, and that is poverty.

And poor people, those of us who grew up poor, you know you buy enough to get through the week.

You don't have enough money to go and buy 6 months worth of toilet paper.

The world has gone mad with people fighting in the grocery stores over toilet paper and paper towels and other stuff that they think they're going to need, canned goods.

Just like that, men's hearts are failing them for fear, just as Christ predicted.

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 2

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word, to have spiritual discussion again.

Lord, again, I ask that you make me just a nail upon the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

But upon that nail, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Oh, Father God, your man servant is not worthy, but I claim and plead the blood of Jesus Christ tonight.

I ask that you bring all things to my mind and bring them through my vocal cords and across these sound waves so that your people would hear the word.

This is our prayer in Jesus's name, Amen.

So this week we are further into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The world is more afraid now than it ever has been The nation of Italy has been rocked by this disease with high death rates and many dead China is now reporting that there are no new cases yesterday.

While the United States is continuing to see more and more cases and more and more deaths in 1 part of the United States, 3 members of 1 family have succumbed to this disease.

This disease works in a very tricky fashion as the medical science is beginning to come forward.

We now know that the disease can often just start with a mild sore throat and that the virus might actually sit in the throat or in the mouth.

Some people are arguing that that's how it happens.

So you hear a lot of people online telling you to drink a lot of water to flush the virus into your stomach where the stomach acid would kill the virus.

I don't know if that's perfectly accurate, but it's always good to drink a lot of water, so I won't tell you not to do that.

And then you always have to be careful, because this is a droplet transmission disease, which means someone really has to cough on you, sneeze on you, and the droplets, the little balls of water, kind of Nasty to think about, but they have to get inside of you and affect you, and that's how this disease spreads.

The other thing we now know is that this disease is able to stay in the air for long periods of time in droplet form, and if it gets on, especially metallic surfaces, Some argue it might be able to last for days.

Once the disease gets into the lungs, if it can get past your immune system, and I'll talk about the immune system in a second before we get into the word, what it does is it gets into the lung and it causes a massive production of mucus, it sounds like, from what the experts are describing, And then some honeycombing is what they call it of the lung, where there's like some bit of a fibrotic or inflammatory effect on the lung, which is where this disease really begins to cause damage.

I would imagine that many of the people, Once the lung is compromised, pneumonia sets in, and it's probably bacterial pneumonia on top of the viral infection.

And ultimately, either from respiratory failure or from sepsis, people would die.

Doesn't sound like it would be a pleasant death, sounds like this is a very difficult and painful situation.

Many people who get that sick wind up on ventilators, and hence the medical system is worried because if all of these people wind up in the intensive care unit all at the same time, It could overload our system where doctors are having to choose who gets a ventilator and who doesn't And that is the fear as 80 some odd percent of the people will get minor symptoms or no symptoms at all 1 of the famous actors Idris Elba Was diagnosed with the disease this week.

Tom Hanks has been diagnosed with disease There are many others who've been diagnosed in high places in the country causing some to argue that it's not fair that the rich and famous Or the privileged are able to get tests when other people can't get them, but that's another argument another story another discussion, but he just Alba said look I've been I was exposed I know that at an event where there was someone who was infected So I went and got tested and I have no symptoms But I have the disease of the infection and there will be many who that is the case but let me give you before we get into the word a few pointers on managing this disease first and foremost It is really important not to wash it to keep your hands clean not to touch things and then not wash your hands If you're like me you have a hard time not touching your face, but you're not supposed to touch your face because then you can bring the droplet to your mouth or to your eyes.

Remember that the eyes have mucous membranes, and so the droplet of the infection getting in through the lacrimal duct or in through your eye, the nose, the mouth.

So all of these things are things you want to avoid.

Obviously, we talk about distancing, this is why I keep talking about 6 feet, so that it's less likely someone breathes or coughs this on you, wiping down surfaces.

But to get a little more into our health message, 1 thing that you do need to know is that the sun is quite antiviral.

And 1 of the reasons why the flu and these other diseases get lessened when it gets warmer is because people go outside to get more sun.

And so the radiation from the sun, the light of the sun is able to do that.

Warmer weather seems to make the virus not work as well.

And so we're fortunate we're going into a warmer time of the year.

Getting outside and getting fresh air is clearly important.

But there are things you can do the dark berries dark grapes The reason they have that dark pigmentation is because of a chemical in them called resveratrol Resveratrol has been shown in studies to shorten viral illnesses probably never tested on this particular virus But I would assume it Wouldn't hurt for you to increase the intake you have of blueberries and blackberries and dark grapes I would also argue that this is if you've been Contemplating a whole food plant-based lifestyle where you give up animal products and cheese and milk If you've ever need a motivation, this is a good time.

There are still many who argue that dairy products actually increase mucus production.

If you happen to get this virus, you don't want it to be in a place where you produce a whole lot of mucus.

The consumption of alcohol and other things that mess with the lower esophageal sphincter and cause you to have reflux is something you don't want when you're trying to keep things from going into your lungs.

So this is a good time to quit smoking for the effects it has on your lungs, as well as the fact that it Also loosens the lower esophageal sphincter and cause things to come back up along with caffeine.

So all of the things we talk about in our health message are protective against this virus.

Leafy green vegetables, what was given to man as he left the garden, The herb of the field that Adam was told to go and to enter and to grow is quite protective as well with the phytonutrients and antioxidants Found in leafy green vegetables along with the dark berries if there was ever a time you want to make an almond milk Spinach blueberry blackberry smoothie now would be the time it would be a great Concoction to help protect you against this virus along with vegetable soups Probably no better time to be drinking lots of vegetable soup than right now warm Liquid seem to do a good job in protecting you against this.

I read an article about button mushrooms.

I know some Adventists won't eat mushrooms.

Fine, don't eat them, but they are proven and shown in 1 study to actually increase the immunoglobulin A, the antibodies in the oral mucosa, to protect so that it would grab the virus.

If someone breathes the virus on you, you would grab the virus in your mouth and along the mucous membranes of your mouth and nose before It can get down into your lungs and and really infect you so Eating all of these foods are very protective And and staying away from all these things and even though we're all locked up and the gyms are closing Exercise does 2 things in a situation like this 1 thing is exercise will release endorphins in the mind, lower stress levels.

I know many watching and listening to this are stressed out over their money, over their retirement accounts, over their jobs, over their loved ones.

Exercising regularly, just a good brisk walk outside is or even around your house Even it's a good way to get those endorphins up so that you can help your mood And and the other reason exercise is good is because it does boost the immune system and allows You to be a better able to fight infection The other thing that will harm your immune system that goes kind of anti exercise are sweets now Don't get me wrong.

If you eat a Snickers bar, you're gonna feel real good It's like edible crack I know and so you don't want to eat Snickers bars right now because Snickers bars when your blood sugar shoots up your white blood cells go to sleep for 6 to 8 hours This is not a time You want your white blood cells going to sleep for 6 to 8 hours at a time?

1 of the reasons this this this virus is gonna be have the wreak the havoc It has something no 1 is talking about isn't simply because of how contagious it is or how virulent it is It is because the immune system collectively in the West and around the world is lower than it should be because we Do not practice the health principles as outlined in the Holy Scripture so if we follow that in the during the the bubonic plague the black plague of Europe the Jews did not succumb the way that the others did and up to a third of the population of Europe died Yet Jews survived quite well In fact, it fueled much of the anti-semitism of Europe that 1 group of people didn't die Why did the Jews died because they followed the biblical precepts to stay away from unclean foods and they washed their hands Ceremonially before they ate And that was enough to keep them Safe from from that plague.

Let me submit to you that the last part of our health message that I want to bring up In the new start which is trust in God the last part of it is also protective I do not want the people of God afraid of a virus The people of God need not be afraid of governments.

I hear a lot of conspiracy theories Maybe you're right.

There's nothing in the world to fear Our fear our trust our hope must all be in God and It is healthy for us to not live in this world in panic I'm starting to call this not a pandemic but a panic Demick because people are so afraid of what's happening I want the Christian believer not to allow the world to weaken you to the point where you are shuddering in your home Running around in circles.

He's had ringing in his ears for 4 months and He came into the clinic this week and said I want to be tested for coronavirus and we said what's your symptoms?

He said I'm ringing in my ears He's had it for 4 months You have a cough.

I'm my ears are ringing, but I need to be tested We said why do you think you need to be tested?

He said I was watching the news And they keep saying coronavirus.

My ears are ringing Church if your ears are ringing you don't have the coronavirus.

I want you as a people of God to not be afraid.

Amen Alright, we're gonna go to Matthew chapter 24 We'll give more updates on that as we go along But I want to go to Matthew chapter 24 and just read a few verses to continue on verse 9 says We let me recap Last week we talked about all the things that would be coming upon the earth, that you would hear of wars and rumors of wars in verse 6, that you should not be troubled, amen, as I was just saying, don't be afraid.

All these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

It's going to get worse Nation shall rise against me then Jesus qualifies that statement.

He's speaking about what's gonna happen before the end begins He says for nation shall rise against nation.

That's race or war That's all of those different things Kingdom against Kingdom and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places And we've seen all of that this week famine is happening around the world Economic collapse is happening all right there pestilence the corona virus the flu the seasonal flu is going to kill Tens of thousands of people this year as much as we talk about the coronavirus Nobody's talking about the fact that the flu like a pestilence is gonna take a lot of people out this year This was a bad flu year because the vaccine didn't match.

We had an earthquake this week in in in Utah in Salt Lake City We had 1 just this year in Puerto Rico and 1 in the Caribbean between Jamaica and Cuba and we've having them all over the World we're not talking much about these things.

I could talk about the fires in Australia.

I mentioned earlier 1 billion animals dead We are with this these prophecies are being fulfilled and at the end of it Jesus still says all these verse 8 are the beginning of sorrows 8 Matthew 24 verse 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows What you're seeing now church is just the beginning You know what the prophet says the prophet says listen if you can't keep up with the footmen How are you gonna run with the horses?

If what's happening now is just the beginning of sorrows and some are losing their belief in God over what is happening now How are we going to stay with God when it gets worse?

Verse 9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted?

Something's going to happen to turn the attention of the world against God's people That's what's about to happen Something's gonna happen They shall deliver you up to be afflicted and they shall kill you and you shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake And then shall many be offended and shall betray 1 another and shall hate 1 another.

Verse 9 and 10 says something's gonna happen that is gonna cause the entire world to turn against the people of God.

All at once, we are going to be the ones that they focus on.

And I want you to notice what is happening in the world now President Trump made a statement earlier this week About what this exercise this pandemic and how we're responding is really like a like a like a dry run for what will happen later on Or what can happen in the future?

I thought it was an interesting statement, and I should find it and maybe next week I'll put it up That was an interesting statement The Pope says this week that he talked to God and told him to stop the epidemic to stop the virus So if it doesn't stop in like 7 days, I don't know if he still is allowed to be Pope But that is what's happening We're looking at people starting to tell you a little bit about the agenda Something's gonna happen and The world is going to turn on the people of God What's gonna happen well you're gonna keep hearing if you look at Twitter and if you look at Facebook and I Don't know.

I'll have a million of these things snapchat and tic-tac and all kinds of stuff tick-tock, I mean if all of these things that the world is watching and they're looking at and they're getting all this information And now they're saying listen, it's the common good We ought to shut her in place and stay 6 feet apart and stay away from church and stay away from ballgames because it's the common good and if someone online Dears to show themselves outside at the beach.

They were mad that people were at the beach in Florida Let me tell you something I would argue 1 of the probably the safest places you could be is a beach right now Where it's hot and humid and you can get in salt water and rinse the virus off and through you.

May not wanna get too close to folk, but I mean they make people look bad and feel bad for going against these edicts.

And I understand the relevance in the moment.

People need to be protecting 1 another and society.

What is scary is how they can shame people for not following the rules This is where the people of God ought to be watching if this is a practice or a dry run What happens when the edict to save the world?

Isn't that we stay 6 feet apart and bump our elbows or tap our feet together what happens when the edict is That you keep this the first day of the week holy What happens when it shifts To the first day of the week and we get publicly shamed.

Stopping the Pandemic at the Door

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study a word.

I ask now, Lord, that you make me just a nail upon the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

But upon that nail, Lord, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Let me not be seen or heard tonight, Lord.

Instead, Father, let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

As our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name.

Eric Walsh, a medical doctor, a public health specialist.

I've worked in the field of public health for a long time and never have we encountered anything quite like what we're going through now.

The story in the scripture that I was reminded of this week to study, to present, is found in the book of 2 Samuel, chapter 24.

We'll go through the Bible, a few key lessons, and I'll bring in some of the relevant pieces of what is going on in the world right now.

The Bible says in 2 Samuel 24 in verse 1, and again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.

And he moved David against them to say, go number Israel and Judah.

To understand this story fully, you have to understand that although David is responsible for his actions, God allowed David to make a bad decision.

The first verse of the chapter says, God moved David against the people.

How did God move David against the people?

This idea came in his mind to number Israel and Judah.

Because the Bible says God was mad at Israel.

Verse 2, the king said to Joab, captain of the host, which was with him, "'Go now through all the tribes of Israel, "'from Dan to Beersheba, and number ye the people, "'that I may know the number of the people.

Now Joab said to the king, now Lord thy God, add unto the people how many so ever they be a hundredfold and that the eyes of my Lord the king may see it.

But why doth my Lord the King delight in this thing?

Israel is beginning to slip away from God.

Israel is slipping because of prosperity.

For the first time in its history, Israel has a solid king in David.

David is a mighty warrior king and Israel has won all of these battles.

Now they are trading around the world and money is pouring in.

The standard of living of the nation of Israel is higher under David than it will ever be.

The people of God begin to slip from God because of their prosperity.

You know it's interesting because people preach these prosperity messages as if prosperity is the natural result of faith.

That if you believe in God, you should be prosperous.

Let me submit to you to be careful that in fact, prosperity sometimes is the very thing that will cause you to lose your faith.

Job says, David, why do you delight in this thing?

And all you can see is that David is becoming prideful.

The spirit of prophecy tells us that even David, who had such a wonderful upbringing as a shepherd in humility, a musician, someone who praised God and had been through all the things that God had delivered him from, even David under the weight of prosperity, even his heart began to be corrupted.

David was proud of his kingdom, proud of having these large armies and soldiers.

You can imagine him having like a military parade and all of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers marching through the streets of Jerusalem.

Verse 4 says, Notwithstanding the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the host.

And Joab and the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel.

And the Bible says, And they passed over Jordan and pitched in Oroir, and on the right side of the city that lies in the midst of the river of Gad and toward Jazar.

Then they came to Gilead, and to the land of Tamim-hutshi, and they came unto Danjan, and about Zidon, and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites and of the Canaanites, and they went out to the south of Judah, even to Beersheba.

In other words, they covered the whole land like America is about to do with the census.

Now, I don't know if the coronavirus is going to cause them not to go door to door and do a census.

So, when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of 9 months and 20 days.

Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto the king after he done this census and there were in Israel 800, 000 valiant men that drew the sword and The men of Judah were 500, 000 men.

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Pandemic at the Door

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 1

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